{"id":724,"date":"2024-07-20T02:06:14","date_gmt":"2024-07-20T02:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sosnorthampton.com\/?page_id=724"},"modified":"2025-05-07T02:57:45","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T02:57:45","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.sosnorthampton.com\/es\/about\/","title":{"rendered":"About SOS"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sosnorthampton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/IMG_8087-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-733\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sosnorthampton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/IMG_8087-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.sosnorthampton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/IMG_8087-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.sosnorthampton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/IMG_8087-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.sosnorthampton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/IMG_8087-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.sosnorthampton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/IMG_8087-16x12.jpg 16w, https:\/\/www.sosnorthampton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/IMG_8087.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><strong>Popsicle Playdate, July 19, 2024<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>SOS Support Our Schools &#8211; Northampton<\/strong>&nbsp;is a growing group of parents, students, teachers, and community members. SOS Northampton was established in the Spring 2024 as a small social media group sharing information and advocating for level-services funding of the schools within the city\u2019s 2024-2025 budget.&nbsp; (A \u201clevel services\u201d budget means that the city would allocate continuing funding to ensure the same amount of staff and services provided during the current school year.)&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite a massive effort by SOS group members through hours of public comment, dozens of emails and letters to city and school officials, Op-Eds in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, rallies, lawn signs, fliers, and a petition gathering over 1,000 signatures, on July 2 the City Council passed a budget that underfunded the schools by 2 million dollars.&nbsp; This means our already understaffed schools will lose 20 teachers, paraeducators, and other staff.&nbsp; Approximately 20 additional educators will receive \u201cforced transfers\u201d which means that they will be moved to a different position, often in a different school, without any choice in the transfer. <em><sub><sup>(Data according to information available mid-July.)<\/sup><\/sub><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>SOS Northampton <\/strong>is not giving up.&nbsp; In fact, we are growing!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Through social media (Facebook, Instagram) a website, and a new weekly newsletter under the <strong>NPS Fund Our Schools<\/strong> logo,&nbsp;we are building a grassroots organized community that will work together to take action to ensure that the Northampton city budget &#8211; and its leadership &#8211; matches the values of families, students, and residents.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SOS Northampton aims to increase community knowledge of public school and municipal budgeting, finance, and elections so that we can ensure a more representative approach to allocating tax dollars within the public schools and throughout the city.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text is-stacked-on-mobile\"><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sosnorthampton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Cathy-M-3.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1330 size-full\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sosnorthampton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Cathy-M-3.png 600w, https:\/\/www.sosnorthampton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Cathy-M-3-300x158.png 300w, https:\/\/www.sosnorthampton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Cathy-M-3-18x9.png 18w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<p>Read the Guest Column by Cathy McNally:  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sosnorthampton.com\/es\/2024\/08\/23\/how-support-our-schools-got-started\/\"><strong>How Support Our Schools Got Started<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-left\"><strong>Contact<\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><em>Our social media pages and email groups are maintained by multiple volunteers.\u00a0 You can reach SOS volunteers at the following email address<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"mailto:sosnorthampton@gmail.com\">sosnorthampton@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SOS Support Our Schools &#8211; Northampton&nbsp;is a growing group of parents, students, teachers, and community members. SOS Northampton was established in the Spring 2024 as a small social media group sharing information and advocating for level-services funding of the schools within the city\u2019s 2024-2025 budget.&nbsp; (A \u201clevel services\u201d budget means that the city would allocate [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-724","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sosnorthampton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sosnorthampton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sosnorthampton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sosnorthampton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sosnorthampton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.sosnorthampton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2410,"href":"https:\/\/www.sosnorthampton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/724\/revisions\/2410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sosnorthampton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}